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ex designer stole the codes ...now what?

well,
we use to have old designer who use to work with programmer(so though he doesnt know programming,he had rough idea where to change and all to set up those scripts,system he worked with us)

now he have left...

but took some of our system and script customization coding with him and now he has started his own site....which is 80% similar to one of our portal.....some sections have only color difference....same structure...same coding.....

now it is appearing along with in google SERP as well....

so what can be done...?

(well,legally there are less we can do as it is difficult to show the customization was done by us.......and we donot hold copy right of the scripts we have made...)

we requested/threated him to put the system down which were very similar(as it is same code).....but he has not done that.......

so what can we do now?

He runs adsense....i have heard adsense disallow sites with exact layout ...can we do some thing here....

what can be best idea....well to be frank it has been strange situation ...now i cannot go to my own codes and start searching where security holes are.......

You don't obtain copyright - you have it it or you don't. If you wrote something then it's yours. The problem is if you can prove it in a court.

Pick up the phone, call the guy and tell him that you'd like him to stop stealing your property.

Obtaining means,we have copy right office here and we can get it copyrighted....dont know for script but i have done for the songs......so there are pratical difficulties for tech scripts so.....i was not opting that way......

one reason this tropic is php section rather then business and legal section of the forum is ,now i want to solve it programatically rather than legally....
if i inject into their code as i know how coding is done,i also know there is little they can do..........

and

Theives are thieves,he didnt knew even designing when he joined me,if he was of that kind(stopping using things on request) then he would not have used it in first place.

Originally Posted by arkinstall

Oh, and to the OP - using WhoIs, can you confirm that his site was put online after yours, and prove that he was in communication with you before this site was put live?

Yes ,we can do that.The site was started may be 2 yrs after ours.
It is a portal site and what he did was took the code as it was in his laptop when he use to work with us,then he took money from other guy and setup excatly same site...
some are made from scratch and some are customization of opensource software(even design and layout,features same...and same code)........

about adsense,their one main reason for being online is adsense,so if we stopped that then it would affect them....

and by the way is there any way we can complain their hosting company....?

use the Web Archive (wayback machine) (google for it) and find a cached version of your site that shows the layout he's using, and then if it's before his site was even up, and you can prove there were communications and he took scripts to make his own site, from a legal standpoint i'm not sure what all can be done, but that has to count for something.

Obtaining means,we have copy right office here and we can get it copyrighted....dont know for script but i have done for the songs......so there are pratical difficulties for tech scripts so.....i was not opting that way......

Local laws aside, you generally don't have to register a work to get copyright over it. The reason for doing an official registration is that it is easier to prove in court. However, as long as you can show that you are the one that wrote the code, it does belong to you.

Originally Posted by frank1

one reason this tropic is php section rather then business and legal section of the forum is ,now i want to solve it programatically rather than legally....
if i inject into their code as i know how coding is done,i also know there is little they can do..........

If you want to play rough, why don't you find the guy and beat him up?

Keep two things in mind: 1) Even if he has stolen your property, it doesn't give you the right to hack his site and 2) if you don't claim your copyright now, you may lose the right to claim it later.

Local laws aside, you generally don't have to register a work to get copyright over it. The reason for doing an official registration is that it is easier to prove in court. However, as long as you can show that you are the one that wrote the code, it does belong to you.

If you want to play rough, why don't you find the guy and beat him up?

Keep two things in mind: 1) Even if he has stolen your property, it doesn't give you the right to hack his site and 2) if you don't claim your copyright now, you may lose the right to claim it later.

ya for music thing if it is not registered,it is really hard who did it first.....unless you are very renouned artist.....
so it is easier said than done...

about second point...i know and agree with your point...thata why i have posted topic here...otherwise i would have been discussing the same topic with people of some other fields... who know whom?
i dont want to play rough......

webhosting suggestion also seems to be fine....will try to do that as well.....